Absolutly! Diversity means different perspectives on problem solving. It also means that it's likely one persons weakness will be another persons strength, as

Absolutly! Diversity means different perspectives on problem solving. It also means that it's likely one persons weakness will be another persons strength, as a result the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. You need the exploratory programmers, the ones who can knock up a prototype in a couple of hours to validate an idea. But they might not be so good at doing production quality work. In your API example, this is the guy who is able to try out that new API framework that got released, and see if it fits with our systems in a couple of days. This programmer likes the New Star Trek, playing online MMO's and listens to drum n bass. You need the diligent programmers - the ones who think of every edge case and make sure it's covered. Their systems are more robust than the exploratory programmers, but slower to deliver. This engineer is the one who will think of every single possible combination of events that could be called on your API. They worry a lot, but don't take this as a sign they're unhappy, as they usually are generally happy. They like reading sci-fi books slowly, they don't make many jokes themselves but will erupt in laughter if you pose a quirky pun or bit of dark humor. They can appreciate the old and the new star trek, but would rather be coding. You need the grumpy guy with a white beard, because he can see the entire tech stack and doesn't mind writing a high perforamnce kernel extension that 10x's your companies I/O perforamnce. But this engineer is NOT interested in working in the latest fad framework. They'll pull your chestnuts out of the fire when it matters most. They like the old star trek, dungeons and dragons and read Poe during lunch breaks. You need the social coder who's great at seeing how systems interact, respected by different teams, they're all about the interface boundaries. They'll be on twitter and in your slack channel. They'll be reading all the pull requests and helping answer questions on the wiki. They dont care much for star trek, but are subscribed to 100 youtube channels. Please forgive my tongue-in-cheek stereotyping, the richness of diversity allows a large field of view, and this comes from everybody having a different background, different interests, and different lives.